The lonesome trail and other stories

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories, by B M Bower This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories Author: B M Bower Release Date: December 31, 2004 [eBook #14542] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONESOME TRAIL AND OTHER STORIES*** E-text prepared by Al Haines THE LONESOME TRAIL AND OTHER STORIES by B M BOWER (B M SINCLAIR) Author of Chip of the Flying U, The Range Dwellers, Her Prairie Knight, The Lure of the Dim Trails, The Happy Family, The Long Shadow, etc New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers 1904 CONTENTS THE LONESOME TRAIL FIRST AID TO CUPID WHEN THE COOK FELL ILL THE LAMB THE SPIRIT OF THE RANGE THE REVELER THE UNHEAVENLY TWINS THE LONESOME TRAIL PART ONE A man is very much like a horse Once thoroughly frightened by something he meets on the road, he will invariably shy at the same place afterwards, until a wisely firm master leads him perforce to the spot and proves beyond all doubt that the danger is of his own imagining; after which he will throw up his head and deny that he ever was afraid—and be quite amusingly sincere in the denial It is true of every man with high-keyed nature, a decent opinion of himself and a healthy pride of power It was true of Will Davidson, of the Flying U— commonly known among his associates, particularly the Happy Family, as "Weary." As to the cause of his shying at a certain object, that happened long ago Many miles east of the Bear Paws, in the town where Weary had minced painfully along the streets on pink, protesting, bare soles before the frost was half out of the ground; had yelled himself hoarse and run himself lame in the redoubtable base-ball nine which was to make that town some day famous—the nine where they often played with seven "men" because the other two had to "bug" potatoes or do some other menial task and where the umpire frequently engaged in throwing lumps of dried mud at refractory players,—there had lived a Girl She might have lived there a century and Weary been none the worse, had he not acquired the unfortunate habit of growing up Even then he might have escaped injury had he not persisted in growing up and up, a straight six-feet-two of lovable good looks, with the sunniest of tempers and blue eyes that reflected the warm sweetness of that nature, and a smile to tell what the eyes left unsaid Such being the tempting length of him, the Girl saw that he was worth an effort; she took to smoking the chimney of her bedroom lamp, heating curling irons, wearing her best hat and best ribbons on a weekday, and insisting upon crowding number four-and-a-half feet into number three-and-a-half shoes and managing to look as if she were perfectly comfortable When a girl does all those things, and when she has a good complexion and hair vividly red and long, heavy-lidded blue eyes that have a fashion of looking side-long at a man, it were well for that man to travel—if he would keep the lightness of his heart and the sunny look in his eyes and his smile Weary traveled, but the trouble was that he did not go soon enough When he did go, his eyes were somber instead of sunny, and he smiled not at all And in his heart he carried a deep-rooted impulse to shy always at women—and so came to resemble a horse He shied at long, blue eyes and turned his own uncompromisingly away He never would dance with a woman who had red hair, except in quadrilles where he could not help himself; and then his hand-clasp was brief and perfunctory when it came to "Grand right-and-left." If commanded to "Balance-swing" the red-haired woman was swung airily by the finger-tips—; which was not the way in which Weary swung the others And then came the schoolma'am The schoolma'am's hair was the darkest brown and 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm License You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm works - You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work - You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works 1.E.9 If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below 1.F 1.F.1 Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm collection Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment 1.F.2 LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - 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